Rorschach's birthday
by futo-chan
Summary: Rorschach turns 37! Hurraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! It's a third comedy two thirds serious. Yay Rorschach!


When: Pre-Crime Busters Meeting and Pre- Blair Roche Case

Where: Huh? New York…Somewhere…in….Veidt's apartment building…

Rorschach stood awkwardly towards the off-center of the room, leaning against a table that Nite Owl II had set up for his birthday party. Of course the whole thing hadn't been at all Rorschach's idea.

Strangely enough, Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre II had arrived first out of all the guests despite the fact that Laurie had always been rather standoffish towards the vigilante.

He toyed shyly with the purple garland wrapped around the gift table as Silk Spectre talked with Nite Owl. Laurie's boyfriend stared around the room at nothing in particular just like he always did. Rorschach was grateful that no one was trying to make awkward conversation with him just yet. Especially not Daniel when he was so obviously much more interested in what Silk Spectre was up to than his best friend.

Rorschach vaguely remembered several months ago when the two of them were on a stakeout in Archie. Daniel had gone through five cups of coffee and was positively giddy because of it. At 3 AM caffeine was the only way he could stay awake. Rorschach, on the other hand, didn't need much assistance staying awake at this hour. He had had one cup because he'd run out of coffee at his own house and Archie's brewing was actually not that bad.

Rorschach was wired on pure concentration. Coffee couldn't make him any more awake than he usually was.

Archie had been on autopilot for hours when Nite Owl got up bouncily, a big smile on his face. In the morning, the shaky Chihuahua caffeine buzz would wear off and Nite Owl would crash. At that point Rorschach would have to steady his woozy, headache-ridden partner up the stairs of the garage-like work space and support him all the way to his room and toss him in the bedroom's general direction.

Then Rorschach would wander back across the city through the tunnel, remaining perfectly lucid until the moment he removed his face and let his head hit the pillow back at his own apartment.

_I do not look forward to your moaning and groaning, Daniel._ He had thought. But out loud he said in a disapproving tone, "Think you can last a few more hours on your previous cup, Daniel?"

His partner had looked at him and back at his liquid addiction. "You really think so, Rorschach?"

"You are still awake, Daniel. Coffee is for nearly falling asleep on the watch. Not for overindulgence."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Nite Owl had reluctantly agreed. Whether he ever noticed that the caffeine tremors were causing his arm to shake the coffee cup in hand, Rorschach didn't know for sure.

"Hey, man. I was just thinking…"

Rorschach glanced momentarily at his companion before he turned his impenetrable inkblot gaze back towards the apartment complex they were watching. Somewhere in there was a previously convicted drug dealer. A relatively big fish.

"Thinking of what, Daniel?" he'd asked coolly after a nervous pause from the pudgier of the two.

"When were you born, Rorschach? You know my birthday, but I don't know yours."

"Hrm. ……….." he deadpanned.

"Yeah? Okay, thanks, man."

………………

_I must make a note to strangle him next time I ever let slip an answer to one of his personal questions._

Dr. Manhattan wandered over and began a discussion with the birthday boy. "You do not seem to be enjoying yourself, Rorschach," Dr. Manhattan stated in airy tones. It was getting harder and harder to distinguish questions from observations when it came to that source.

"Hurm." Rorschach grunted in the affirmative.

"Well, I hardly think that Rorschach is the socialite type, Jon," Veidt announced upon his arrival. He came fully furnished with his trademark grin and Adonis gait.

Rorschach didn't say anything. He just eyed the oddly-shaped package tucked beneath Veidt's arm.

"Hi Adrian!" Silk Spectre chirped.

Nite Owl shook his hand gleefully. "I'm happy you came! It would be terrible of us to have a party in your apartment if you weren't able to come to it!"

Adrian smiled reassuringly. "Ah, well. I cancelled my business meetings for the evening. There's not much that shares the same level of importance to me as celebrating with an old colleague."

Once again Rorschach didn't care too much to listen to Adrian's rehearsed babbling. He stood silent, his hands in his pockets even though everyone had by now moved close to his position beside the gift table.

And, as though he could read his mind, (which Adrian might have been able to do, since the superman had achieved almost as much ludicrous physical perfection as Dr. Manhattan. In any case, Rorschach was planning on looking into it.) Adrian beamed and lifted up the present towards Rorschach.

"Here you are. Birthdays aren't much fun without guessing what gifts you've received."

He accepted the oddly-shaped box. It might have been two boxes with the smaller one stacked atop the other and tied together with ribbon before they were wrapped.

Rorschach examined birthday presents the same way he examined crime scenes; with a sharp, uncannily instinctive skillfulness.

The inkblots on his mask shifted with fascination as he cocked his head to the side, gingerly shaking the box beside his ear. He looked at it again. Adrian gave him a disarmingly angelic Forbes magazine-cover smile with such practiced ease that Rorschach had no choice but to ignore him. Which he probably would have done anyway.

"Still curious as a cat, I see," he stated assumingly.

"And _I_ see that you're still dressed like a fairy."

Rorschach glanced up in time to see the telltale smirk of the Comedian. He had smelled the wafting stench of the man's cigar smoke but hadn't bothered to mention it to anyone else. Ozymandias and Silk Spectre had probably noticed it too, and he was sure Manhattan had turned subtly in the Comedian's general direction a full two seconds before he made his entrance. Daniel could be dense, though…

"Oh! Comedian! When did you get here?" Nite Owl exclaimed. Very dense.

"Yeah, well, birdbrain 'ya neglected to invite me."

Nite Owl flushed. "Really? I'm sure I sent you one-"

Comedian rolled his eye. "Eh, don't lay an egg on me, will ya! I'm just pullin' yer leg!" he chuckled, smacking Nite Owl wholeheartedly on the back a couple of times.

Dan massaged his sore spine once Blake oozed away.

The Comedian's eyes sparked with mischief and he stole forward towards Rorschach.

"Well, here's the man of the hour, there." He grinned, expertly shifting his cigar to the side of his mouth with his tongue and lips.

"What have you got there? One of the Smartest Presents in the World?"

Gruffly, he made a move to reach out and grab for it.

Rorschach calmly but stealthily transferred the packaged behind his back and onto the table.

Ozymandias exhaled with relief. Blake might have torn his gift to shreds, set it on fire with his cigar, tossed it out the window into traffic…a whole assortment of prank-like things.

The Comedian laughed. "You're a tricky one, Rory. Mind if I call you Rory?"

Rorschach put his hands habitually into the pockets of his trench coat and shook his head. Nite Owl broke into a shocked smile. Ozymandias had been right- his partner tended to be on the antisocial side. Rorschach had little patience for Nite Owl's drama or anyone else's for that matter. Except he seemed to have some sort of connection with Blake.

"'atta boy, Rory!" the Comedian roared. "So how old is the birthday boy now?"

He was looking at Dr. Manhattan.

Dr. Manhattan opened his mouth to respond when Veidt barreled on in with the comment "Why don't you see if Rorschach would mind that? None of us are exactly young anymore, and I can't speak for everyone else, but I would be mortified if Jon knew how old I was and blurted it without asking beforehand."

"Nobody asked _you_, Tinker Bell," the Comedian growled with an aggressive finger jab at Veidt.

He turned back to Dr. Manhattan. "True blue?"

The man previously known as Jon Osterman looked to the masked vigilante for permission. Rorschach shrugged. Like he gave a damn if people knew he was on his way to becoming middle-aged. It didn't make much of a difference to him. He wasn't dead yet, and he intended on going out late at night to crack skulls until he was at least as ancient as the blue person staring him down. Or until he was one hundred and ten years old. Whichever came first.

"You're turning thirty-seven, aren't you, man?" Nite Owl said to Rorschach in an ineffective whisper loud enough for the whole group to hear. The detective didn't respond just yet. Nite Owl knew to keep his eyes on his friend for an answer.

"Rorschach is now thirty-seven years, four hours, eight minutes, and twenty-three seconds old."

Rorschach nodded. "Yes, Daniel. Thirty-seven."

Comedian whistled. "That's more like it."

Adrian blinked at Blake, confused. "But he gave the same number as Dan did."

Comedian snorted. "No, Dan gave an estimate compared to Super Smurf here."

"Now, now, you guys," Nite Owl said in his fatherly tones. More like motherly tones.

Silk Spectre sighed and said, "Adrian, he's just playing a joke on you. He's the Comedian. He likes to mess with people. Just let him do whatever floats his boat."

Veidt calmed down, "You're right. Forgive me. It is rude to question the jokes of the court jester."

Rorschach noted that his party guests seemed to be more preoccupied with each other than they were with him. Not that he minded. He stepped near-silently to the edge of the table.

_Wasting time at a party that isn't a party. Daniel dragged the others here. Disgusting that he thinks I need them. It's likely I can jump out the window. This is a second story window and I saw a fire escape nearby. Daniel would never outrun me and the others shouldn't bother to chase._

Speaking of Daniel, the vigilante strode over towards Rorschach once he noticed his friend's behavior.

"How's it going Rorschach?"

"Fine, Daniel."

He was lying through his teeth. Or his mask-wait, face-ah, damn it, never mind.

The short, disgruntled sigh-like noise that escaped his mouth afterwards totally discredited the previous statement.

"What's up, man? I know you don't like people, but I thought you might…uh…that it might be nice for you to try…I mean, I thought you liked the Watchmen."

"Hurm," Rorschach grunted thoughtfully.

He disliked Veidt for his arrogance and for his blindingly apparent vanity. Spectre's revealing costume made him uncomfortable even though she was probably forced into wearing it by her loose mother. Manhattan was impossible to comprehend by anyone short of a duplicate when the blue man multiplied himself.

"So!" the Comedian blurted, clapping his hand together with an exaggeratedly loud smack and rubbing them together with glee.

"When do we get this party started?"

Nite Owl cut everybody a slice of cake, which Rorschach politely declined until later. He'd raided Nite Owl's fridge earlier and purposely ignored the chubby man's suggestion not to ruin his appetite.

Besides, the cake had an inkblot pattern on the icing and Rorschach wasn't sure if eating it could be considered cannibalism. He pondered that for a while.

The Comedian broke out a six pack of beer and passed one around to each of them. Like a true blue collar mess of a human being, the Comedian popped his bottle cap off via the edge of Veidt's fancy table edge. Like a true circus freak, or maybe Greek god of show-off-iness Ozymandias bent the bottle cap with his thumb. Dr. Manhattan floated his and Silk Spectre's off, which frankly was an alien-like overkill. Rorschach twisted his off by pressing a palm against the cap and swiveling his wrist a little. Nite Owl tried to mimic him and managed not to get it even half-screwed off.

He handed it to Rorschach who effortlessly opened it for him.

Rorschach held it out to his friend discreetly and Dan took it.

"Yeah, well, I uh…loosened it for you," he muttered sheepishly.

Rorschach chuckled; a rather deep, dry sound that Nite Owl took as patronizing but was in truth simply amused.

Dan pouted nevertheless.

The Comedian's ears perked up. He, of course, had memorized the laughs of everyone present. Manhattan had a soft, spacey chuckle. Spectre's was still young but melodious. Nite Owl's laugh was painfully more self-aware every time and neared prepubescent tones. Ozymandias' laugh was rich and coated with either conceit or mystery.

But Rorschach's laugh was particularly intriguing. It was low and gave an unusually sweet expression to his typically guttural rasp of a voice.

The Comedian grinned. It was a beautiful laugh- probably the kind that you could only provoke by accident.

"Good job, there, bird boy. I see nobody taught you how to fight bottle caps as much as fight crime."

"Now, now, just because Dan doesn't have enough strength training..." Ozymandias said in an unenforced scolding voice. He unsuccessfully held back a laugh.

Laurie giggled but then insisted, "Quit it!" seconds later.

If the word to stop came from Silk Spectre's mouth then the joke was over as far as the Comedian was concerned.

He changed the subject.

"Hey, how about you open some presents there before you and me both kick the bucket of old age?" he goaded.

Rorschach nodded. He was vaguely interested in the presents.

Everybody was anxious to see whose gift such a person would select first out of the pile. Rorschach decidedly made up for the beer incident by seeking out the shiny chocolate brown wrapping paper- a sure sign of Dan's gift because it was a favorite color of his. If Daniel could put snowy owls, barn owls, or the Great-horned-who-gives-a-damn-about-owls-owl on wrapping paper he would have.

Nite Owl gave a small, appreciative smile.

Rorschach traced his fingertips around the edges of the parcel, feeling four sharp corners and many straight edges. Definitely a book.

He tore off the wrapping paper all of a sudden, and as always, his rough movements were like he was launching an attack. He stared at the cover. Brave New World.

It was a hardback, and hardbacks were made for Rorschach; someone like him could tear a paperback in half by accident. He would have destroyed his journal by now toting it around the filthy city like he did if it hadn't been bound in leather.

"Meant to read this for a while. Thank you, Daniel," he growled clearly.

Nite Owl beamed. "Hey, your welcome buddy."

Comedian always smirked when Nite Owl called Rorschach 'buddy'. It made him want to look around and see just who the hell Nite Owl was talking to. Rorschach was a compact can of bone-breaking strength and heightened nerves. Now was one of those times that he seemed almost twitchy with combative urges. In later years he would always seem even more so. Always.

If Rorschach were reborn as an animal he would probably end up as a bulldog. They were small-statured but nobody ever seemed to notice because of their ferocity and incredibly effective strength. On the surface they appeared clumsy or guileless and unapologetic brutes but actually had such solid footing that they were nearly impossible to knock over.

The slightly larger Comedian was more of a Rottweiler. He even looked like one. He was less of a dog-like persona; he was much more ursine and off-balance. Somebody as quaffed as Ozymandias would always call him uncouth.

In later years people would call Rorschach far worse than that. But graceless, he wasn't. People had trouble denying that fact.

Next was Silk Spectre's gift- the little tag with her name on it had "From Silk Spectre II" scrawled on it with the single 'I' dotted with a tiny explosion. God, she was young to be a vigilante.

It was a huge, box-like structure at least a foot long. Probably clothes.

He opened it, pleasantly surprised at the result. It was a pristine double-breasted tan trench coat completely devoid of wrinkles.

"Dan told me your size, so it should just about fit," the girl commented.

"Thoughtful of you, Miss Jupiter."

She smiled.

Then there was Jon's present. Ironic that it was wrapped when he wouldn't put on decent covering for himself.

Rorschach thought of Jon and Laurie as a suitable couple if only for the reason that they formed a two-person coalition of semi-nudity existing –in his mind- for the sole purpose of thoroughly disturbing him.

"What is it?" Nite Owl asked. Rorschach handed it over to him once his friend refused to respect his personal space without a closer look at the thing.

"It's a self-sufficient energy generator. It will power Rorschach's grappling hook. He will no longer require gasoline to fuel it."

Rorschach removed said grappling hook from inside his coat and deftly took out the fuel capsule. He handed the container to Nite Owl, who clipped it into his utility belt.

Rorschach held out the gun towards Dr. Manhattan, fingers flat like one would hold their hand when negotiating with a black hole.

The god-like being levitated it in front of him and inserted the generator. He floated it back over to Rorschach who took it matter-of-factly and admired it one last time before tucking it back in its hiding place. "Useful gift. It'll be much more efficient."

"Jesus Christ, Doc, you don't need to fly every hunk of junk around your head to prove you're a psychic WMD," the Comedian commented.

"Did you save the best for last, Rorschach?" Nite Owl asked, shooting for a peace offering in the form of a cheesy compliment.

The Comedian snorted.

Rorschach opened Ozymandias' present without much pretense. The novelty of gifts was wearing off on him.

He stared at the object in his gloved hands.

"What book is that?" Laurie asked.

"I don't know," Dan admitted.

Jon didn't say anything.

"Did you request that or something, Rory?"

He shook his head. "Veidt…this is one of the first books to discuss the existence of a perfect society …?"

It was Utopia, written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More. It probably cost more than the average hardback novel. A nice gift for anyone who was even relatively a bibliophile.

Comedian raised an eyebrow.

Laurie and Dan exchanged looks of cluelessness with each other.

"Yes, Rorschach, it is. It's where the word and concept of 'Utopia' originates."

"Not sure if I want a perfect world. Or to know about one."

Veidt shrugged nonchalantly. "Yes, well, I'm sure you do _sometimes_."

Rorschach plucked out a tinier package from the remnants of the larger one's wrapping paper. They had been tied together with ribbon after all. It was a bottle of Veidt's own Nostalgia cologne.

"And sometimes the world looks as if it were better in the past," Adrian said slowly, as though time were standing still right now.

"Looks better. It wasn't better."

The Comedian looked at Jon and saw an eerily unusual sight; the ghost of a smile.

There was something final in Rorschach's voice. Something knowing and hard and enraged and at peace all at once.

"Yeah, well the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence but you still have to mow it," Blake finally cut in, perforating the suddenly serious mood with an expertly half-serious but equally poignant remark.

Only Ozymandias laughed.

"Which reminds me. Everybody else's gifts may be better, but you still have my hunk of junk left to open."

"Better get it then, Blake," Rorschach growled cleverly, pointing beneath the table.

Comedian ducked under the gift table and produced his present out from behind the tablecloth. "You probably looked over the whole building when you got here, didn't you, Rory?"

"Just the room."

The Comedian grinned. "Well, you sure called me out on this thing's hiding place."

He handed over the package. It was decorated with a tacky wrapping paper printed in bright yellow smiley faces. It felt like the flimsy cardboard structure of a department store clothing box. He tore through all the smileys, purposely ripping diagonally through several of their faces as though he could kill them.

He lifted off the lid of the box and set it onto the gift table.

He pulled out the upper half of the suit. It was a full, loud, grapey purple suit with thin black pinstripes and matching pants still in the box. It was a ridiculous joke of a thing.

Dan blinked at it. So Blake had noticed what Dan couldn't help but noticing. Rorschach had a fondness for vertical pinstripes- he had many suits with the pattern, each in a different, dark color. Midnight black with white stripes, minty forest green, oceanic navy blue, rich brown and sumptuous foggy gray. All beautiful, masculine colors. All the dark colors except for purple.

For somebody so gruff and careless about what others thought of him, Rorschach dressed very well.

He fingered the material through his ever-present gloves and his mask shifted its inkblots in an unreadable pattern. They hardly ever appreciated how beautiful the inkblots became when Rorschach was lost in thought. They shifted slowly, dancing in starbursts and slushy black wells of activity, of pure creative force into intricately gorgeous patterns of infinite possibility.

Somehow the suit was…familiar.

"Why don't you try it on, Rorschach?" Nite Owl piped up.

"Oh, that would be nice," Laurie agreed.

"Better give the people what they want, Rory," the Comedian goaded with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Rorschach had a high level of tolerance for this disgusting, hilarious, evanescent…person. Could you even call the Comedian a person? He was more of a satire, a walking imitation of the everyman.

"If you insist."

"There's a bathroom down the hall," Ozymandias suggested.

And with that, Rorschach took the box and walked off.

Laurie ceased to stifle the fit of giggles that she'd held off

"It'll clash like crazy with all the splotches on his mask, you know."

"You may be right, Silk Spectre. Then again, his inkblots are black on a white base. Neutrals don't clash with many things," Adrian countered.

"The pattern, though," Laurie insisted in her near-whine tone-of-voice.

Comedian just stood, there, puffing away on his cigar like a chimney, relishing the buildup. Hoping for the worst and ready to laugh at it when it came.

"You're crazy if you think that you can convince Rorschach to put on a fashion show for you. I requested that he show me his method for breaking into locked crime scenes and he refused. I was just trying to be polite but that man won't show any of us anything about himself," Ozymandias warned him.

Nite Owl wrung his hands. "He's just a private guy, Adrian. It's nothing personal. It's just that he has some trust issues. They must be from when he was a kid or something."

"Maybe he walked out, Dan. You know how he is, maybe he didn't want to become a laughing stock so he ditched the present in the trash and ran off," Laurie surmised.

"He walks fast enough to be a block away by now, Blake. Several minutes have passed," Dr. Manhattan put in.

They all grew very quiet. Dan was afraid for his friend's sake. They would all laugh at him if he took off and they would laugh even harder if he stayed and wore the stupid suit for them. The trouble was Dan didn't know how Rorschach would react to that.

They were all dead quiet with anticipation.

"Well?" the telltale, deep, gravelly voice said.

The man it belonged to stepped out.

Everyone stared.

The grape-psycho-crayon-shade-of-purple-suit had looked almost clownish by itself but now its cheesiness was utterly obliterated by the personality occupying it. One could not, in fact, make Rorschach into a clown. And if one could succeed in doing so, one would not be smart to stick around much longer afterwards.

Of course Rorschach's body language leant an unquestionably confident quality to his appearance. And confidence is everything. Nite Owl for instance, may have been taller but criminals never cared much about looks when Rorschach was so much more intimidating. Not to mention he had his bone crunching reputation as a hard-ass for every law known to man.

But the new clothing was astonishingly well-suited to him. He still wore his mask, hat, scarf, and gloves, but from head to toe somehow he looked much different. He looked…handsome. In an odd way he was. The suit was perfectly tailored for him to the point where everybody was questioning whether the Comedian had snuck into Rorschach's house in the middle of the night and measured him or if Nite Owl knew his friend's measurements and spilled the beans like he had for Laurie's present.

He kept his hands loose at his sides, clenching his fingers into fists every now and then with a sort of boredom.

His black dress shoes shone dully with a well-used but polished glow and the pants fanned out from his legs and back onto them whenever he shifted his weight. It was true what people say about vertical pinstripes making a man look taller, but he did have relatively long legs. Silk Spectre didn't like him as a person let alone enough to find him attractive, but she couldn't help but notice that Rorschach was much leaner than she thought he'd be. There was little body fat gathered into his form and his stomach must have been absolutely flat because of the way the top of the suit practically caved in towards his abdominals after smoothing over his modestly yet formidably strong chest. They were all absolutely awe-struck to see that he was capable of looking this way. To think that underneath that trench coat this strangely attractive person was there all along.

Ozymandias noted the way the fabric clung to Rorschach's tight, powerful biceps as he crossed his arms in exasperation.

"Daniel? Does a cat have your tongue?"

"Wow."

Rorschach cocked his head to the side suspiciously.

"I-I mean, it looks awesome on you, man. I was worried for a minute the purple would be too much…but man, can you pull it off!" Nite Owl grinned with relief and pleasant surprise.

"It suits you very well, Rorschach," Ozymandias agreed with an almost-too-warm smile.

"I think the color is actually nice, Dan, it goes with his gloves, don't you think?" Laurie asked Nite Owl.

Rorschach self-consciously clenched his hand and snuck a subtle glance toward his nearly-black indigo leather gloves. He hadn't considered that, but it was true.

Nobody could tell if the Comedian was disappointed or if he'd expected Rorschach to look that good all along.

"What do _you_ think, Jon?" Laurie badgered at her ethereal boyfriend.

"I think it is nice. Do you like it, Rorschach?"

The birthday boy uncrossed his arms and stood thoughtfully for a moment.

"It is a good suit," he admitted.

Nite Owl smiled.

Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre wished Rorschach a happy birthday again before they left. The four men remaining stood still for a moment before Nite Owl and Rorschach began the process of packing up his presents. "Where are you going to put your cake?"

"In your refrigerator."

Nite Owl laughed. "Yeah, I guess that'll be okay. Just don't let me eat it all by myself."

Rorschach nodded.

Ozymandias smiled softly as he finished winding the garland off of the table and threw it away. "Say, Blake, would you like to tell us a joke to while away the time as we finish up here?"

The Comedian took his cigar out of his mouth and chucked what was by now a nub across the room into the trash can. He took another one out of his jacket and lit it slowly with a match as he puffed its first few breaths.

"Well, you know what, Ozzy, how about instead of me screwing around while you work; you have Rory here tell you a joke. I feel like fucking Snow White watching three of the seven dwarves."

They all looked at Rorschach, who just completed re-packaging all of his newfound goods and packing up all of the clothes he'd arrived in.

Nite Owl sighed. "Do you know any jokes, Rorschach?"

The vigilante nodded. "Not sure if you could find it funny, but it is a joke."

"Well, go ahead then. Get your show on the road," the Comedian gestured, by now a little bit enraged that his prank was diffused. But he was curious about the masked man now.

"Once there was a man who was very poor. He went to work every day at his job and the other workers could see that he was poor. They knew he must be wearing cheap clothes, but they couldn't see them because he wore a long, expensive overcoat.

The workers wanted the man to take off the coat. Then they would laugh at him.

It was winter so the workers waited for the spring. But spring came and the man didn't take off his coat. The workers waited until summer and he didn't take off his coat. So in the middle of the summer, the workers had had it. They wanted to see the man's clothes. So a worker convinced a homeless woman to talk to the man after work and ask for his coat. The man gave the woman his coat without a second thought.

The next day the workers came in and saw the man's clothes. They were dirty, and full of holes, and patched. And they knew now that he was poor. Then they laughed at him.

But the man wasn't ashamed. They stopped laughing. One of the workers asked why he wasn't embarrassed. He said that he was. But the workers saw other poor people on the street and never bothered to laugh at them."

There was silence then.

Rorschach didn't move his steely inkblot gaze from the other Watchmen.

"Huh. That sounds kind of like that 'Emperor's New Clothes' story," Nite Owl commented.

"It may come from that," Rorschach acknowledged.

The Comedian chewed on his cigar with a dark grin.

Nobody said another word, but the joke had all told them the truth; Rorschach had called it. Called them on their on joke.

"That is a very good joke, Rorschach. But you were right. I can't quite bring myself to laugh at it," the smartest man in the world said, looking up at his acquaintance with a pained smile. "It looks like you owe him an apology, Blake," he murmured in the Comedian's direction.

Before Nite Owl could express anything over that, Ozymandias addressed him brightly.

"Dan, how about I assist you with loading up Archie?"

Nite Owl smiled, "Sure! Thanks, Adrian."

The two gathered everything and went to the door.

"There in a moment, Daniel," Rorschach informed.

"Okay, buddy."

"Man, you've got a lot of goodies!" he added, hefting up the pile presents along with the cake so that the mound reached just below his chin.

Ozymandias left with a thoughtful look on his face.

The door clicked shut.

"Thanks for the suit," Rorschach said.

Then he stayed unreadable and still for a minute and when Blake didn't speak up he turned to leave.

"Hey, Rorschach?"

The vigilante turned towards his acquaintance in silent acknowledgment.

The Comedian took his cigar out of his mouth and looked up at him with an incredible melancholy in his gaze.

"Don't ever let anybody tell you that you don't have a sense of humor."

Rorschach nodded. "Good night, Blake."

The Comedian smiled at that, relieved. There was no resentment in Rorschach's voice. Just knowing.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered happily and wandered off to his car. Probably a trashed sports car to mirror his scarred face.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite you, Rory!" he called out as he sauntered off into the night.


End file.
